Capabilities & Roles

WP Sell Services adds one role and eight capabilities. Everything the plugin gates – admin screens, REST routes, abilities – goes through them, so this is the page to read before building a custom role or restricting an area.

The vendor role

wpss_vendor is registered on activation. Users get it when they become a vendor, and it is additive: a subscriber who becomes a vendor keeps reading and gains selling.

It carries read, upload_files, edit_posts, plus five plugin capabilities.

The capabilities

Capability	Grants
`wpss_vendor`	Marker capability – “this user is a vendor”. Gates the selling side of the dashboard
`wpss_manage_services`	Create and edit own services; also gates vendor-side earnings reads
`wpss_manage_orders`	Act on orders (accept, deliver, complete). Gates the admin Orders screen
`wpss_view_analytics`	Analytics dashboards
`wpss_respond_to_requests`	Submit proposals on buyer requests
`wpss_manage_vendors`	Approve, suspend, and edit vendors (admin)
`wpss_manage_disputes`	Mediate and resolve disputes (admin)
`wpss_manage_settings`	Read and write plugin settings (admin)

The first five are vendor-facing; the last three are administrative and are not granted to vendors.

Who gets what

Verified on a stock install:

Role	Capabilities
administrator	All eight
wpss_vendor	`wpss_vendor`, `wpss_manage_services`, `wpss_manage_orders`, `wpss_view_analytics`, `wpss_respond_to_requests`
shop_manager (WooCommerce)	The same five as `wpss_vendor`
author	The same five as `wpss_vendor`
editor, contributor, subscriber	None

Activation grants vendor capabilities to author and shop_manager.

This is deliberate – a WooCommerce store manager can run the marketplace without a second account – but the author case surprises people. Every existing WordPress author on the site becomes a vendor the moment the plugin activates, appearing in the vendor directory and able to publish services, regardless of your vendor-registration setting.

On a blog with contributors who are not sellers, that is probably not what you want. Strip it after activation:
add_action( 'admin_init', function () {
    $role = get_role( 'author' );
    if ( ! $role || ! $role->has_cap( 'wpss_vendor' ) ) {
        return;
    }
    foreach ( array( 'wpss_vendor', 'wpss_manage_services', 'wpss_manage_orders',
                     'wpss_view_analytics', 'wpss_respond_to_requests' ) as $cap ) {
        $role->remove_cap( $cap );
    }
} );
Note that vendor registration mode does not gate this. Closing registration stops new sign-ups; it does not revoke capabilities an existing role was granted at activation.

What each capability gates

Surface	Capability
Admin: Orders screen	`wpss_manage_orders`
Admin: Disputes screen	`wpss_manage_disputes`
Admin: Settings screen	`wpss_manage_settings`
Admin: Vendors screen	`wpss_manage_vendors`
Admin: top-level menu	`edit_posts` (deliberately low – vendors reach their own screens)
REST: create/update service	`wpss_manage_services`
REST: analytics	`wpss_view_analytics`
Ability: `wpss/create-service`	`wpss_manage_services`
Ability: `wpss/view-earnings`, `wpss/request-withdrawal`	`wpss_manage_services`
Ability: `wpss/submit-proposal`	`wpss_respond_to_requests`
Ability: analytics / subscriptions / Connect [PRO]	`manage_options` (plus `wpss_view_analytics` for analytics)

A quirk worth knowing: vendor earnings reads are gated on wpss_manage_services, not on a dedicated earnings capability. If you strip wpss_manage_services from a role to stop it publishing services, you also remove its access to earnings and withdrawals. Add a role that keeps wpss_manage_services but restricts publishing another way if you need that split.

Checking capabilities in code

Use current_user_can() as normal:

if ( current_user_can( 'wpss_manage_disputes' ) ) {
    // Show mediation UI.
}

To ask “is this user a vendor?”, prefer the plugin helper over checking the role name directly – it is filterable, so sites that grant vendor status another way still work:

if ( wpss_is_vendor( $user_id ) ) {
    // ...
}

// Override the answer, e.g. treat a membership level as vendor status.
add_filter( 'wpss_is_vendor', function ( $is_vendor, $user_id ) {
    return $is_vendor || my_plugin_has_seller_membership( $user_id );
}, 10, 2 );

Customising

Grant a capability to another role

add_action( 'init', function () {
    $role = get_role( 'editor' );
    if ( $role && ! $role->has_cap( 'wpss_manage_disputes' ) ) {
        $role->add_cap( 'wpss_manage_disputes' );
    }
} );

Role capabilities are stored in the database, so this only needs to run once – but guarding with has_cap() keeps it idempotent and cheap.

Remove one

add_action( 'init', function () {
    $role = get_role( 'shop_manager' );
    if ( $role ) {
        $role->remove_cap( 'wpss_manage_services' );
    }
} );

Build a moderator role

A reviewer who mediates and moderates but cannot sell or change settings:

add_action( 'init', function () {
    if ( get_role( 'marketplace_moderator' ) ) {
        return;
    }
    add_role( 'marketplace_moderator', 'Marketplace Moderator', array(
        'read'                 => true,
        'upload_files'         => true,
        'wpss_manage_orders'   => true,
        'wpss_manage_disputes' => true,
        'wpss_manage_vendors'  => true,
    ) );
} );

Deliberately no wpss_manage_settings (cannot change commission or gateways) and no wpss_vendor (does not appear in the vendor directory).

Gotchas

Roles persist. add_role() and add_cap() write to the database. Removing your code does not remove the role – clean up on your own deactivation hook.
Multisite super admins pass current_user_can() for everything, so an admin-only screen is visible network-wide by design.
Verify after a migration. wp wpss preflight checks that the expected capabilities exist; a role editor plugin can strip them without warning.